


I’m at home when I’m with you.

by starbucks22



Category: High School Musical: The Musical: The Series (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-18
Updated: 2020-01-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:20:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22305556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starbucks22/pseuds/starbucks22
Summary: Nini goes off to the actors conservatory... but due to a series of events, she comes to realize what she needs more than anything: her family.
Relationships: Ashlyn Caswell & Nini Salazar-Roberts, Big Red & Nini Salazar-Roberts, Ricky Bowen/Nini Salazar-Roberts
Comments: 4
Kudos: 76





	I’m at home when I’m with you.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi quick note this is my first hsmtmts fanfic, so go easy on me!! Also this is unedited.

Nini goes to the conservatory.

She’s back, at least partly, within two weeks.

“It’s just more intense than I thought it was going to be,” she says with a grimace and a shrug. “I don’t think that I’m good enough.”

Not one person within her little High School Musical theater family would believe that, or let her believe that either, though. They refused loudly, throwing French fries at her every single time she says anything bad about herself. 

Eventually, she stops.

Within a month, though, she’s on the brink of quitting the conservatory entirely, for more reasons than one.

Her friends, her oh-so-supportive, loving best friends, continue to hype her up and cheer her on, believing in her so wholeheartedly that most times, it gives her a confident boost and a bit of a thrill. Every single day, she misses them all more and more, even the ones she doesn’t interact with as much. That feeling only increases when all of the East High theater kids start buzzing about the unknown, upcoming spring musical. 

Everybody tries to take a stab at what it could be. 

“Tomorrow, tomorrow!” crows her mutual crush/boyfriend/whoever even knows anymore, Ricky. He’s twirling around his room, arms flapping around randomly as he squawks to the popular Annie song. “The... sun will come outtttt! Tomorrow! So ya,” he points over at his propped up IPad and at Nini’s laughing face, “Gotta hang on ‘til tomorrow. Come what may! Tomorrow!” He twirls around again and just narrowly avoids tripping over his abandoned skateboard. He does a little hop-skip in order to avoid face planting. He kind of looks like a drunk leprechaun, and his bright green shirt doesn’t help matters any. “I love ya!” He points at the camera again, and for a second, Nini is unsure if he’s telling her that he loves her, or if he’s singing the song still, but once he continues singing with a big, doofy grin on his face, she figures that it’s probably a little bit of both. “Tomorrow! You’re always a day...” he stretches out the word ‘day’ for long enough that it looks like his voice will give out. Before he can finish off with a loud, ‘away,’ there’s a knock at his bedroom door. 

His dad pops his head in.

“Hey, kiddo.” He looks over at the IPad, to where the two teenager’s two hour long FaceTime call is holding strong. He waves over at it before looking back at Ricky. “Time for dinner.”

Ricky shoots a sad pair of puppy eyes over at the device, then over at his dad, but the man holds his ground.

“You can talk to your girlfriend later,” he says with a teasing smile. He doesn’t know how accurate that sentence actually is.

“You can go,” says Nini, trying to keep down the sudden burst of sadness at the idea of having to stop talking to him- also, with having nobody else to talk to. All of their friends are busy. “I’ll be fine.” She shoots for a smile. She thinks she manages it.

“Okay,” the curly boy says, still pouting. “I’ll call you back later.”

And he does.

*****

The first sign- besides all of the loneliness, so technically it’s the second sign- that Nini should go back to East High comes in the form of, oddly enough, Ricky’s mother. 

Nini had been just getting out of an acting class when her phone, which she could have  sworn  was on silent, suddenly buzzed and shook, calling for her attention. Sighing, she accepts Ashlyn’s call.

“Hey, Ash-“

“We have a problem.”

Nini freezes. “What?”

“You’re on speaker phone,” a voice from the background, Gina’s, informed her. Ashlyn and Gina had made a deal with both of their parents and Gina was allowed to stay in their guest room until graduation. Since she was only a sophomore, that was still two years out, but nobody had a real problem with it. Especially not Gina, who was, (and still is,) super happy that she gets to stay with her friends and continue doing theater with them. 

“We have a problem,” Kourtney, her voice oddly serious, calls out. She doesn’t sound very close up, but her voice is loud, so she must be either attempting to snatch the phone from someone, or she’s just on the other side of... wherever they are. Probably not a classroom, which just brings her more concerns. Are they skipping class? They don’t just  skip  class.

“What’s the problem?”

“It’s Ricky.” Ashlyn has received temporary control of her phone again. 

Nini freezes. The words instantly send her into panic mode, but she forces herself to calm down and address the situation- whatever the situation  is-  rationally. 

Firmly, she repeats her previous question. “What’s the problem?”

“It’s Ricky’s mom.”

When is it not something to do with Ricky’s family,  she couldn’t help but bitterly wonder. Can’t the poor kid just catch a break already? 

She doesn’t hold back on her sigh. By now she’s thoroughly convinced that this isn’t a problem she needs to race back to East High for. She can handle this over the phone. Her panic quickly drains away from her, and as she makes her way into the bathroom and flops down into a oddly nice couch, she is accidentally lulled into a false sense of security. 

“Nini, Ricky’s mom is gone.”

... What?

“Gone?” the brunette croaks, throat going dry as panic once again reigned, trying it’s darned best to crawl up her throat to the point where she was hardly speaking. Luckily, even though her mind ran to the worst possible conclusion, her red headed friend’s  didn’t.

“Not that kind of gone!” she hurriedly denies. 

Nini lets out a deep breath, feeling like she can breath much better now. With a much clearer head on her shoulders, she asks, “Okay. Thank goodness. If she’s alive and well, what kind of gone are you referring to, then?”

There’s a short pause. In the far off background, she can hear a door quietly open and close as multiple familiar voices shout out.Big Red, who’s apparently in charge now, speaks up as he ignores whatever’s going on behind him. 

“Well, um. Don’t freak out, but nobody’s really... sure where she is?” It comes out as a question, and she doesn’t have to be with the boy to know that he’s wincing. 

She can feel her grip tighten around her bookbag. She’s going to be lucky if she doesn’t break it. Better break that than her phone, she supposes. 

“Back up. She’s  missing?”

“Uh, no. Yes.” He pauses, and when he speaks again, he’s audibly unsure of the real answer. He settles with telling the truth, or at least the truth he knows about. It’s good enough for the time bring. “I don’t know.”

“What  do  you know?” Briefly, she realizes that there’s nobody trying to butt their way into the conversation anymore. She remembers the sudden yelling and a slamming metal door from a few minutes ago, and quickly pieces things together. “Wait. Is Ricky with you?”

“Yes.” He doesn’t bother hiding it. “Everybody’s hounding him right now.”

“Why aren’t you?” She knew she would be, if she was actually there. “He’s your best friend.”

“My very confused, very on edge best friend. I know him well, and right now he just needs some space. And maybe he needs to rant.”

“In that case, I’m surprised that you’re not shoving people away from him.”

“I’m not going to get the chance.” She hears some thumping, a couple of complaints, and many loud curses coming from a voice which she quickly identifies as Kourney’s. Not much else needs to be said on that front. 

“I get that. Okay, so, seriously. What do you know?”

“Two days ago Ricky tried to call his mom, but he never got an answer. Today he called Todd, the boyfriend, but he refused to give us any information.”

“Do you think he did something?”  Did he do something? Gosh. I feel like my life just took a sharp turn and entered a soap opera, or something like Law and Order. I can’t imagine how Ricky’s feeling right now,  she thinks. It’s bad enough when you’re only loosely connected to the situation at hand; it must be a nightmare to be so close to it. Especially when it’s your own mother involved. 

“I don’t know. Ricky really doesn’t like him, though.” And, yeah. That doesn’t help much, but it does give some insight.

A bell rings, and this time the clambering, noisy teenagers are from Nini’s side of things. She looks around the crowded hallway and picks up her books. “Have someone text me or call me the second that something changes, okay? The  second  there’s any new information at all, okay?”

“Okay,” he agrees quietly. 

The phone hangs up, and Nini’s standing in a crowded hallway of a exclusive school that she’s kind of regretting ever signing up for. All she wants to do is ditch it all and go back to East High, back to her friends.

Things wouldn’t be any easier there, she knows. In fact, everything would probably get  harder  and  more complicated,  but here’s the difference:

She wouldn’t be so alone.

*****

The same day Nini fully commits to going back to the school she truly belongs in is also the day that everybody decides to blow up her phone. 

She’s two classes in before she decides to sneak the phone underneath her desk and scroll through the many,  many  missed texts and calls. There’s usually never this many, not when she’s in class and, come to think of it, so are they. 

Somehow, she has a feeling that not one of her East High friend group actually is, and if they are, then they aren’t paying even the slightest bit of attention. To be fair, though, neither is she.

She’s more than a bit concerned over just how cryptic everybody is in their messages. The fact that a lot of this is in their group chat, which is never  this  active, just adds fuel to the fire. 

**Ash Ash:** We have another problem.

**Redder Than Thou:** No, we don’t. It’s the same exact problem.

Dancing Queen:  I’m just going to cut to the chase: we have more information about what’s going on with Ricky’s mom.

Even though she knows she could get caught at any moment, she texts back. A bad feeling is present in her stomach, that kind of gut feeling that screams at you that bad things are coming.

**Me:** And what exactly is that? And why are none of you in class?

**EJ:** why do you think we’re not in class?

**Car:** Probably because we’re blowing up her phone. 

**The Seb:** Maybe we should elaborate.

**Kourt!:** That’s probably for the best.

**Me:** Please!

The anticipation is  killing her.  She maintains her near constant eye contact with the board and the teacher in front of her. She tries to listen as the old woman drones on and on about To Kill A Mockingbird, as if it isn’t a book that most of her eleventh grade class hasn’t read about two years ago. None of them have any interest for it, and it makes Nini positive that she’s not the only one on her phone. She flicks her sound all the way down, stuffs the thing in her pocket, and pretends to take notes.

The second class ends and the bell for lunchtime rings, Nini is flying out the classroom door. She’s running at the speed of light. Her mind is racing like the speed of sound. She’s going, going, and... 

“Ugh! Watch where you’re going!”

...Gone. 

“Oh, my gosh. I am so sorry.” In her hurry to get outdoors, she accidentally landed head first into somebody’s food, which spilled all over the both of them. “I would stay to help you clean,” she motions vaguely at the dirty tray, “This up, but I really have to go. Again, really sorry! Bye!”

*****

Nobody tells Nini a darn thing until her lunch period is almost over, which naturally leads to her wondering just where all of her friends disappeared to. She’s so anxious she’s not sure what to do. It doesn’t help that she has class in about... oh, ten minutes.

Her relief comes in the form of her boyfriend. 

**Baby:** Nini I need you. 

She ditches her last class. 

*****

Nini keeps ditching.

She misses one, no big deal. She misses two, oh well, it was a mistake.

She misses three and it starts to become a habit.

She intends to make up for it- really, she does. It’s just that her friends are more important than her drama classes, which really says a lot. 

When Ricky’s mom flees town and doesn’t come back, Nini officially transfers back to East High.

“Why? You love it there!” Kourtney is exclaiming.

“Aw come on Kourt, don’t you miss me?”

She gets serious for exactly three seconds. “You know it. But for real, don’t come back just because you want to spend time with your friends. It’s not right. You deserve to be there.”

“No. I hate it there,” she admits for the first time since... well, ever, actually. She looks back at the camera sweetly and says,

“East High is my home.”


End file.
